Entries tagged with scheduling

1. Acting journal (just need to print it out)2. Text work (print out assignment 2, three-hole punch the whole shebang, turn it in)3. E-mail Ingrid re: conference4. Finish filling out study abroad paperwork so that all you have to do Monday is get the signature from the ML dep't and turn it in5. "Representations of Tibet" paper6. Return library books7. Figure out a damn topic for final Medieval Lit paper

I find it ironic that I feel way way worse physically when I've had, like, 24 oz. of coffee than I do when I've had two mixed drinks and a beer.

Had a dream that I ended up finally sleeping with . . . some boy. Possibly a conglomeration of many boys. And by "sleeping with" I mean just sleeping with, not euphemistically having sex with. There were a lot of cuddles. It was a nice dream. I think there was something about rescuing people off a riverboat, too, but obviously the Stephanie Meyers-style romance stuck with me more than that.

1. Call my doctor and say "pls refill my prescriptions asap I'm so sorry I didn't do this a MONTH before I left town rather than a week and a half pls can you squeeze me in I'm so sorry I'm a flaky college student".

I think I have successfully addicted roomie to SPN. >:D She snipes much less now. (We're on "Dead Man's Blood" (which should be fun fodder for our Twilight vendetta) -- but I told her we have to save the last ep for tomorrow, when we get back to Pittsburgh and I have s2 on hand, because from past experience, if you have the option of watching "Devil's Trap" and "In My Time of Dying" one right after another, you want to take that option.)

Anyhoo. Break is nearing its end. I need to write 1000 words (two responses) for Feminist Lit still, but I have more or less caught up on Interpretive Practices. Go me!

Speaking of feminism -- y'know what's always educational? Rereading Dave Sim's "Tangent" every so often. (Warning if you have never read this: after the publication of this, Dave Sim started saying he would only respond to articles or communications that begin with "I do not believe Dave Sim is a misogynist." This article is that awful. It's good for your blood pressure, if you tend to be hypotensive, like me.)

Oh, man, I had a dream this morning that starred Batman, the Tenth Doctor, Judi Dench, and the freaking Tofu Monster.

And now I only vaguely remember the plot that tied them all together, but I assure you it was awesome.

I also had some kind of idea for a short Supernatural trailer/vid involving the idea of prayer not being enough, but that's rather macabre for a Saturday morning.

OH. On the subject of Supernatural, though -- "On Your Porch" is totally a Winchester boy's song, and I'd love to vid it, but the POV would have to switch back and forth and I'm not sure that works with such a single-narrator song.

Plans for today:

1. Pull out my bike and tune it up. My plan is to go to karate a couple times a week and bike as much as I can to stay in some kind of shape.

1. Talk to History dept. about getting me into that Art History course. (The prof is this tiny old Transylvanian woman. No joke. She showed us slides of her home in Cluj (sp?) to prove that it wasn't "a Dracula country.")

2. Order textbooks (list to come) from Amazon or similar, because fuck you, campus bookstore.

is the CMU campus. That lovely green rectangle in the middle is ( the Cut. )

Isn't it lovely? I live across Forbes Ave. from the Cut, in the building marked 41 on the map. The Cut is on a slight downhill slope to Forbes.

A pipe -- judging from the color of the water, a sewage pipe -- broke under the Cut this afternoon. So imagine that lovely green quad -- well, white right now -- with a fifteen-foot-wide river of brown water, probably a couple inches deep in places, flowing aaaaaaall the way down it to Forbes.

I have to admit, though, the effect it makes as it falls down the stairs by "Walking To the Sky" (that incredibly phallic bizarre sculpture in the second picture) is rather lovely. If you don't think about it too hard.

Best thing, though? In spite of the river obstructing weak-stomached traffic -- it's the last day of classes, and there're several inches of snow on the ground. I had two very brief snowball fights with a Californian and a Floridian who had never had them before.

Now I'm going to get this stuff in my head about the semiotics of political campaigns down before the caffeine wears off, then get lunch, then . . . who knows. It's Friday, classes are out, maybe I'll do something fun!

Everyone has snow but us. :( We have rain. Although it's nice that it's not face-numbingly cold and windy today.

I auditioned for Proof this morning, and I think it went well; the director and I talked a little about Angels in America (my back pocket contemp dramatic monologue is Harper) and the HBO miniseries, and I didn't forget any lines, and the cold read felt really good.

Fingers crossed so hard. SO hard.

And now I'm procrastinating on getting to work. I should really eat lunch, and maybe go by the libraries to pick up some books on Orientalism and return the books I was reading over break.

I spent some of this morning poking around Wikipedia's lists of endangered and extinct animals (research for 2020sight). Tasmanian Tigers are still awesome, but OH GOD THEIR JAWS. Shades of the Hellhounds. *shudder*

Actually, I wonder if that's what the SPN folks were using for reference. *thoughtful*

Yesterday I melted down on some people, so first off, thank you. I ended up taking newredshoes' advice and took a mental and physical health morning, slept till 10, and feel inexpressibly better for it.

Today has actually been slowly getting better and better after that promising start. My workshop group actually was productive during Foundations, and the teacher said not only would we have two days for in-class work, but we could petition for an extension to the 9th; I went to Doc's office and though he didn't have any work for me, I did get an extension on my review to the 5th, so I can review Tin Man; and our TA got back to us and said our group project due tomorrow could be extended to Friday.

Tick, tick, tick -- three major weights lessened.

Plus, I found Christmas presents for my dad and sister in the bookstore (I was going to get him The Year of Living Biblically, but it turned out he's already read it). Still stumped on Mom, though.

And to top it all off, I look good today, which neatly knocks down at least part of last night's other anxiety.

ETA: I thought I heard someone (a big black man in a Carnegie kilt. I love my school) in the School of Drama mention a CMU grad and Watchmen in the same sentence as I was passing, so I checked the IMDb page.

(Not really relatedly, so's Gaius Charles, who is not in Watchmen but is, you know, one of the stars of Friday Night Lights, so. And as you're all no doubt sick of hearing from me, so's Zachary Quinto.)

Goddammit. I wanted to take an acting class next semester, but the only one I could take had 33 people on the waitlist. And the Pirates, Pickpockets, and Prostitutes class has a waitlist, and so does Intro to World History, and I have to go try and test into Int. Spanish, and just. Agh. COLLEGE WHY DO YOU MAKE MY LIFE SO DIFFICULT.

But. The classes I can register for are registered for (Dramaturgy II, Foundations II, Conservatory Hour, and African-American Women in US History), and I've got good waitlist numbers on PPP and World History, and I've e-mailed my advisor so she knows what's going on, so all I really have to worry about is testing into Int. Spanish.

. . . Which is admittedly a relatively big worry. LA.

Screw this, I'm taking a shower and getting coffee, since I'm clearly not falling back asleep like I was planning to.

-Shower-Eat-Caffienate-Catch the 500 downtown and pick up those train tickets-Work on argument synthesis revision today so it's less to stress about tomorrow-Do the readings for Religion paper ETA: Three documents and a chapter for Tuesday, PLUS two documents and a 1000 word paper for Thursday? Screw you very much, prof. *irate*-Try and do a Charles EP tonight?-Hold off on watching more Who until progress has been made on homework.ETA: Yeah that totally happened. >.> (Oh SJ. *hugs her forever* *K9 also*)

Donating blood went without a hitch. *very pleased* It took forever and a day to get into the system, because there were so many people waiting in line. Which -- is amazing. The blood bank in AK almost never has a line. Which -- is depressing.

The phlebotomist was really good, too. One of the most painless sticks I've ever gotten (out of, er, four. Look at me talking like I have so much experience with needles. *rueful). And I got a bag out of it! Which is great, because I've been wanting some kind of small bag for times when a huge squeaking bright blue laptop bag is inappropriate.

Anyhoo. The weekend starts now. *stretches* I do have a paper I need to revise, but that shouldn't be too hard. And I may be seeing Ratatouille (FINALLY) tonight, am certainly going to the Mattress Factory tomorrow morning, hopefully going to Three Sister tomorrow afternoon, and hearing Leon Katz speak tomorrow night. A full and exciting weekend.

ETA: . . . *staring at computer and external hard drive, worried*

Um. Ever since -- yesterday? -- when I plug this hard drive in, the computer says it's not recognized. Earlier it would install the drivers, but still not recognize the drive. Now it's not even doing that.

This is the hard drive that has all my LJ icons and other Photoshop stuff on it, most of my pictures from my camera, my music, and most importantly, my writing. Like Pandora.

I started restarting the computer last night, and it didn't help. Any suggestions, O tech-savvy f-list?

I made it through Dramaturgy class and then my brain took off for the weekend.

Which was a shame, really, because I still had two more classes.

Interp. & Argument is always fun, because I have a cool instructor (she reminds me of you, buongiornodaisy -- v. smart, with this kind of low-key sense of humor, and she won't take crap from the students). She just passed her Ph.D. exams and says now she's going to write about pirates and prostitutes. How cool is that?

Unfortunately, Critical Arts Histories continues to piss me off because I feel like half the time half the people who talk -- including the profs -- are bullshitting to sound smarter. They say things that mean nothing; the profs don't dare to say "Well, no, Student X, that interpretation makes absolutely no sense," they just hem and haw.

In that sense, it's a very useful class. My bullshit detector needs tuning so that I can keep myself from spouting the same kind of meaningless fluff. I did that last week when the prof said "Look at Duchamp's Fountain -- this is beautiful. Why is this beautiful?" And somebody said that the shadow looked like the classic silhouette of the Virgin Mary, and I said that the shape of it, divorced from the actual object, reminded me of the little founts of holy water in churches, and I could feel the people around me going "What the fuck?" And then the prof compounded it by saying "Well, yes, Duchamp was a Christian, so it's interesting to think that that background might have influenced this work--"

NO. What the hell? Fountain is not intended to echo Christian architecture. It's a urinal. The point of Fountain is that Duchamp took something base and low and dirty, something no one wants to talk about, and presented it differently and called it art, and so it became art, something high and of value, and it changed modern art forever. Christianity? Bullshit! Do you think he was intending to make a statement about the circle of karma when he made Bicycle Wheel? Of course not!

As a viewer, of course, it's entirely possible and entirely legitimate for you to bring those interpretations. If you want to look at In Advance of the Broken Arm and say that Duchamp was making a Marxist commentary on utilitarianism and the working class, you can. Great. If you want to look at Fountain and draw religious parallels, go for it. Fine. But Duchamp made it abundantly clear that he was creating these ready-mades for their own sake. They are what they are what they are, and yet they are still art. It's about objects in space. Don't take my interpretation of it and ascribe it to Duchamp, for Christ's sake. He knew what he was doing. I'm a college freshman trying to get points for participating in class.

I am so sick of talking about Duchamp.

We're supposed to turn in notecards at the end of each lecture with some kind of comment or thought, so that our TAs have something to work off of at recitation (also to make sure we were there and awake). I've been drawing the Somebody Frog on the backs of mine, as some kind of commentary on art or another. I'm not exactly sure. Maybe it's a Frog for the sake of a Frog.

Also I have to write a rough draft of an argument summary on an essay about "Strange Fruit," and I probably have another fuckton of readings to do for Interp. and Religion. And I need to figure out this production history -- I may have to abandon Antigone and do some other significant classical play. Bah. And mapping arguments for Critical Thinking. But at least I got my performance review done!

*headdesk* *groan* Yesterday I almost slept through a meeting; today I was nearly late for class and I bombed a quiz because I read the wrong piece by the right guy. I guess it was about time I screwed something up.

On the plus side, though, I chose plays for my production history project -- Arcadia for my contemporary play, and Antigone for my classical. Before summer conservatory began, ghost_light was telling me about Antigone being performed in South Africa and The Island and all kinds of fun stuff, so I'm trying my damnedest to find information on the production that The Island is based on. I'm preeeetty sure I'm going to fail, but Doc suggests doing a production of Antigone from after The Island was first performed, which I like.

And then we started talking about supertextualism, which is why I was nearly late for class (ask me about Othello as Adam!).

batyatoon, I used your argument about art being a different concept from good art/bad art in class today, as re: Marcel Duchamp and his ready-mades. :D (For the record? I'm not convinced that buying a bottle rack and declaring it art makes it art, but I'll go along with hanging a shovel from the ceiling and calling it art. It's a difference in investment on the artist's part.)

Today I go get information on auditioning for the a capella (A Capella?) group, and I have to . . . thing. Write something for Foundations, I think, and read stuff for Religion undoubtedly, but I'm already done with my Critical Thinking homework. Win.

ETA: *GLEEFACE*

Homework for Foundations, it turns out, is reading the Natyasastra -- that is, "the science of theatre," and specifically, the story of the Natyaveda.

ETA: Except it would mean, effectively, giving up the chance to test for my next belt rank in karate. Which is a definite drawback. Although, on the other hand, both shows would be done by mid-May, giving me about two months before leaving to maybe work on it.

Jesus. *headclutch* Also, doing both would mean no chance to do Ren Faire, or at least to do the fight show at the Faire.

It also contained a letter from Barnard saying "Look, we have your CSS and FAFSA, but we can't continue your award process 'til we have these forms." The letter's postmarked Feb 16 -- which should mean they have my forms now, and are continuing my award process.